Jax and Tara Return from the Ultrasound
by SpanishForrestLovePlight
Summary: Post season 3/Pre season 4. After Jax returns with Abel, and they know both their babies are safe, how do they rebound from all the hurtful things spoken between them?


Tara walked through the door of their house with Jax behind her. They had just come home from the ultrasound and they both knew their baby was healthy.

"Babe?" Jax asked Tara in a defeated tone. It was a one-word question. _What do we do now?_

Tara went and sat on the couch hugging her pregnant stomach fiercely. When Jax saw Tara earlier, when she was with Salazar, it was the first time he had seen her, really looked at her in weeks. He had noticed her face was slightly more filled out, even though she'd been starved for days. The reality of the entire situation uncomfortably settled in.

Jax took a seat on the furthest cushion away form Tara. He wasn't sure if she wanted him near them.

"OK. Whatever you need to say, say it now before we go and see Abel. I want….i need for us to sort everything out now before…."

Jax couldn't continue his sentence, Tara had burst into tears and heart renching sobs escaped her lungs. Jax stood to go to her, but Tara lifted her hand. _No. sit down. _She silently pleads.

They sat for a few minutes before in between sobs, Tara let her words get the better of her silent protest for space.

"I thought it was a sick joke from god when I found out about the pregnancy. I just had my baby taken from my arms at gun point and he was replaced by this little tiny, miniscule sea monkey." Tara gestured to her stomach.

"All I have ever wanted was to have a part of you growing inside of me. I used to think about that a lot you know. We were 17 and all I wanted was your baby. Half me, half you."

Jax half-heartedly nodded. He remembered talking about have babies with Tara. He always loved the idea of her carrying his baby. One night after impassioned teenage sex he turned the conversation serious. He moved down from cradling Tara's face so he was talking to her stomach.

"One day I'm going to have a little bit of me in there, and every day of those 9 months, I'm going to look at you and know that you're my old lady and I'm gonna be an old man. Your going to give me the opportunity to be an old man one day, I just know it! And woah baby…. I don't know if there's anything sexier than the thought of you carrying my baby."

They used to imagine together how happy they could be when that day came but now they were having a different conversation, which was a complete parallel to what they had envisioned all those years ago.

Tara decided to continue, although hesitantly. "You were ruined after Cameron took Abel and baby I don't blame you for that. Not at all. I played out all of these scenarios in my head of telling you and all of them ended with you thinking I didn't need Abel because I had my own Teller baby now, you'd walk out that door and not come back. I was right, I guess. You did leave and I didn't even need to tell you. You left me because you blamed me for Abel."

Jax shook his head and tried to but in, however Tara wouldn't put up with any more silence. Now was the right time and she had the knocked-up and kidnapped card at play, she deserved the time to talk honestly.

"Jax, it's ok. You did blame me. And I blamed myself. I wish I would have been strong enough and fought and scratched and punched him but I just remember being paralyzed by fear. He was holding this little sharp knife against Abel's neck, and all I could think about was how much blood this little baby held, how many veins and red blood cells." Jax could see Tara looking into space looking like a ghost, not the passionate and heated stain of flush that is usually present. He hated knowing that he prolonged her suffering. He didn't help her when she needed it most. Tara wanted to help them both and he pushed her away like a scared little boy.

Jax sensed what was coming and he now had his chance to face it like the man he wanted to be. He was a Man of Mayhem but now was time to be something more than a gangster pimp. He had to approach this like a partner. A half of a whole. A whole which is nothing without it's individual parts.

"Ima…she…I." Tara paused to gather her thoughts. She wanted him to understand exactly what she was trying to say. She didn't want Jax to feel sad but she wanted him to realise the pain so that he would never have to go through it a second time. A large part of Tara also understood why Jax had done the exact thing she told him was her deal breaker. Perhaps she was so far deep in love with Jax she could find a way to rationalize any of his mistakes. Even when those mistakes turn into purposeful and a somewhat malicious attempt to save her from the 'outlaw' way of life, where drugs, guns, prostitutes and most recently kidnapping, were a not a nightmare, but a recurrence.

A memory flashed through Tara's clouded thoughts. "When I walked in and Ima was wearing your shirt. You were sitting on the bed and I reminisced back to the probably hundreds of times I had walked into that room with you sitting naked on the bed looking beautiful. You usually smile that cheeky smile"

Tara laughed a little.

"You know that _I know what you look like naked_ smile. But you weren't smiling and I could see the flicker of mischief in your eyes." Tara was still smiling although not her usual unconditional smile but something a bit more sinister.

Jax wasn't feeling the same. How much damage had his plan inflicted? Would be ever get his beautiful16 year old girlfriend back? His hold on his emotions started to break, he could feel the skin around his eyes pinch and his lower eyelashes fill with loose and free flowing salty drops.

"I was still optimistic though I was trying to be positive. I was nauseas, I was tired and emotional. Walking into that room and suddenly this baby felt like it weighed 30 kilos. My whole stomach dropped. I knew what you were doing. You're a smart one Teller. You knew that I could stand the blood and the smell of gunpowder, the occasional bruised eye.. But knowing you were inside of her. I was so tired of it all. But I couldn't give up entirely. I knew we were going to get Abel back and then have this baby. I needed to believe that in order to wake up everyday otherwise I thought I would just die in my sleep. Alone and longing for a family you said I wasn't apart of and didn't have a future in."

Jax hadn't hit her or physically abused her. But he may have well had. What he had done was even worse. He was always saying to her that he would never let anyone hurt her. But he didn't always include himself in that statement. Maybe he knew that this was his true nature. He was snapped out of his guilt when he felt Tara sitting next to him. Clasping his hands in hers. A glimmer of hope was present in her eyes.

"Babe. Look at me." She waited until he did. She moved her hands to his face and he pressed into those hands like a man facing the wrath of the gods.

"I love you so much. So much and it hurts so bad. And I am not saying all this to hurt you but I need to get this off my chest otherwise I will start to hold it against you." Jax nodded. He understood a little more than he wanted to but he knew just by the tone of her voice and the look in her eyes that there was a path to redemption for the both of them. It would not come without arguments or judgment, but overtime they will conquer their inner fears together like they have done for the past decade or so.

They were both crying now.

Jax spoke now and he knew he should tell her this everyday. " You know, you're the only one I can cry to. You're the only one I can share my trepidations and worries with, whether it's about morality of whacking a guy or the integrity of the club. You're my person, you know, and you have been for a while. You're my own person to come home to at night…I don't wanna sound possessive but your mine."

Tara giggled with acknowledgement. "Hey Mr. shaggy locks and kutte, I remember saying something along those lines to a couple of girls back in my days of fight club. Do you remember how possessive I got? Now that was crazy!"

The both of them were smiling and the salty tears had started to dry. They had evolved together into the people they were today and people may say otherwise but they're both good people. The surgeon and the gangster. Their love story only to be rekindled when they murdered a Fed.

Trying to keep the new tone of their conversation light, Jax prolonged their nostalgia with another violent act of Tara's past, which coincidently, they both found humorous. "Jackie Truman! Do you remember her? Oh boy that was big one! We had been dating for what? A year?" Jax asked Tara for validation and Tara sheepishly smiled in response.

"Jackie and I were standing in front of the lockers and she reached over and touched my hair" Jax paused to laugh some more. "Poor Jackie, she sure did choose the wrong time to make a pass! You came strutting over with you books and slammed them into her nose! Blood everywhere! And you said…" more laughing and he modified his voice to sound a little bitchy "BACK OF YOU…."

Tara finished the sentence for Jax needing no reminder of her glorifying words. "BACK OF YOU LITTLE SLUT. HES MINE."

"Yeah that's exactly what you said. Phew! You picked up your bloody book and wiped it off on Jackie Truman's shirt, turned away and walked through all the crowd but not before you oh so subtly shuffled your top higher so everyone saw your crow."

Jax suddenly stood and pulled Tara up with him. He turned Tara around with her back to his chest. He kneeled, pulled up Tara's top and kissed the wings of Tara's crow. He talked into Tara's back and rested his forehead on where he had just kissed her.

"I have always loved this. Whenever I see it I think back to when you were sitting in the chair getting this done. You had pulled my face close to yours and you hands were clenched in my hair but whenever I looked at you, you were smiling."

Jax now turned Tara again to talk into her belly.

"And this my love…" he kissed everywhere he could find "makes me smile even more".

They stayed like that for several minutes. Tara, softly smoothing her fingers through Jax's hair and Jax holding Tara's stomach close to his heart.

"but now we gotta go see our other son".

Tara lifted her hand to wipe off the tears that had escaped. She knew this conversation didn't mend anything but it did give each other the answers as to how they were going to work on it together. And like as it had always been with Jax, Tara didn't miss a thing "you know, I think two Teller boys are enough to handle! A nice Irish Knowles girl may be growing in their!." . They were still laughing as they walked out the door to go to the MC and their bodies were never separated for too long.


End file.
